Engaging Culture; our Christian perogative

This post is spurred by many things that have happened to me in the past 6-10 weeks; the statistic that Nigeria is top ranking in searches for gay pornography on Google, the purported show on a transgender 11 year old that DSTV wants to air in Nigeria, a guy that I know who is openly coming out as a hater of God and has transitioned into being a woman.  The culmination of it all was the interview between Flo and Bisi Alimi, the first Nigerian to come out as being openly gay. The interview is in 2 parts and you can watch it here. As per the interview, I'm sure many believers would not agree with Flo's strategy (of not coming on forcefully on the guy about his homosexual status) but I think I know what Flo is trying to do-he managed to destroy that stereotype that Christians are all about condemnation and are not understanding in any way (and I daresay we should try this approach more too) but that's not the thrust of my post today.

My mind is troubled by the fact that the majority of christians are not realizing that things have changed and that then environment we are in has completely changed so we keep trying to use the same old methods/technology to produce a different result. Earlier in the year, just before the elections and the announcement of Buhari as the president of Nigeria, God spoke to me about the coming months. I posted it on Facebook. Hebrews 7:12, 18 (Amplified Bible)

For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is of necessity an alteration of the law [concerning the priesthood] as well... So a previous physical regulation and command is cancelled because of its weakness and ineffectiveness and uselessness--

What does this mean? It means that once a means of achieving an outcome is no longer getting the desired results, it becomes obsolete. What am I saying? Our approach to changing our culture has been ineffective up till this moment, shouldn't we change it and take on a different approach?

I ask myself lots of questions just to be sure I know what I am talking about and so that I will know the reason why I believe certain things. It seems to me that most of us believers don't ask ourselves questions. Something is not working and we just conclude that it is a mystery beyond us and we just let it be. For example how is it that young people are modelling their marriages, careers, fashion, etc after shady characters and not after people with good values? We simply say "It is the end times. There's nothing we can do about it."

My point is that we need to review our approach to young people today because once the next generation is hooked on the wrong value system, we can be sure that the future will be full of darkness and depravity. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. It works both ways!

My observation over the past few months is that believers have not developed ways to enter into the conversation of culture and engage. We have stood aloof, making comments, boycotting and complaining about how things are while not doing anything. we have become keyboard critics when we could have done something about infusing the values of the kingdom into that teenager that lives in our compound. We must take this fight on two levels; the grassroots level (one on one) and on a large multi/digital media level. Matthew 5:13-16 comes to mind right now.

1. We must be salt; unseen, covert activities that systematically permeate, engage and influence culture and secondly;
2. We must be light: overt, obvious action/activities that will educate and address the issues in our environment.

I still have much to say and I will share in the next few days. In the meantime feel free to share your thoughts with me here or hook up with me on Twitter @eyitope.